Yet a series of Freedom of Information (FOI) requests show that 54 private schools are still being funded by local authorities, while continuing to teach that the Earth began with Adam and Eve.

Only 14 of the 91 schools teaching creationism have had their funding withdrawn, an investigation by the British Humanist Association revealed.

The campaign group also found that some faith schools' science departments were teaching pupils to identify what happened on each of the days of the creation.

The curriculum of one group of religious schools reads: "Creation stories give a holistic image of the origins of the earth, plants, animals and human beings."

In another, it says that 'The Darwinian mechanism delivers clarifying power within a certain range of phenomena, but it is rooted in reductionist thinking and Victorian ethics and young people need to emerge from school with a clear sense of its limits.'

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/11578432/Creationism-still-taught-in-faith-schools-despite-Government-funding-threat.htmlThe article mentions both Christian Schools Trust and Accelerated Christian Education schools as being among the culprits but gives no indication of how they have obtained state funding in the first place. i shall have to look for the original report on the BHA site.Interestingly, the creationists get much less of a kicking in the Telegraph comments than i have seen after similar items on the Mail site. One commenter getting away with dismissing evolution is a polycommenter common on the Telegraph and Guardian sites, one "Slobberdan" who seems handy with the cut and paste. He refers to the work of "Harry" - actually Barry - Hall of Rochester university who seems to have his work appropriated by the usual creationist suspects. Acutally Hall seems to be a perfectly respectable evolutionary biologist, judging by a press release from his university: http://www.rochester.edu/news/show.php?id=1555Harry for Barry might be a typo, but Slobberdan's confusion of haemophilia with sickle-cell anaemia in conferring resistance to malaria is less excusable. Even so, it might be worth looking at Hall's work to make sure that the creationists are indeed misrepresenting it.EDIT TO ADDThe BHA link is here https://humanism.org.uk/2015/05/02/bha-reveals-creationist-private-schools-continue-to-receive-state-funds-through-nurseries-despite-government-ban/It's the rather old story that the schools are getting funds through what is, in effect, aoucher scheme for nursery funding. The BHA says that this was officially stopped for creationist schools last year.

On first reading the BHA report is a little bit misleading (so no surprises there). It actually looks like the 'funding' is part of the fifteen free hours at nursery for three and four year olds rather than direct funding to the institution!

Which is attached to the child for private or state funded nurseries or childcare. Yes it's a loophole and I'm not sure it was ever closed. Yes it's wrong. But the BHA need to be more accurate in their reporting. It is not the direct funding of creationist schools.

If a parent were paying to send their child to a private creationist nursery they would get the same free fifteen hours as anyone paying to send their child to a normal private nursery. Or state nursery or childminder. The funding will cease once the child starts school whereby they'll either go to a state funded school hopefully free of creationism or pay the full fees to go to a creationist one. Still a loophole that should be closed. But how?

I think you, i and the BHA are all talking about the same funding. According to their link to the Telegraph the changes are riding on the back of the Trojan horse business;

n her first major policy announcement, Nicky Morgan will say that local authorities will be obliged to use new powers to strip nurseries of their funding if they are found to “promote extremist views”.

She will also say that toddlers should be taught “fundamental British values in an age-appropriate way” as part of a drive to protect children from religious radicals.

Nurseries that teach creationism as scientific fact will be ineligible for taxpayer funding, under the new rules.

Brian Jordan wrote:I think you, i and the BHA are all talking about the same funding. According to their link to the Telegraph the changes are riding on the back of the Trojan horse business;

n her first major policy announcement, Nicky Morgan will say that local authorities will be obliged to use new powers to strip nurseries of their funding if they are found to “promote extremist views”.

She will also say that toddlers should be taught “fundamental British values in an age-appropriate way” as part of a drive to protect children from religious radicals.

Nurseries that teach creationism as scientific fact will be ineligible for taxpayer funding, under the new rules.

BUT despite Sweden showing free schools to be a disaster AND the UK free schools faring quite badly, AND real proper schools run by people who know about education rather than bloke in pub being starved of funds - it looks like Ncky (less popular than Gove - nobody would have thought that possible) Morgan (should it be moron) plans a mass expansion of the free school programme!! I know because for some bizarre reason I keep getting e mails from Cameron's publicity depts - must have filled in some survey or other.

Ah well. We're all mighty teary in the science dept. Not cos we is we is all girly with no Tim Hunts to fall in love with - cos I'm the only fragile 'girl' swooning irrationally and emotionally all over the Bunsen's. The rest are hardy, clever, logical blokes tho strangely they all manage with women in labs - cos they ain't Tim Hunts I guess. No it's cos we've run out of sodium hydroxide (really), benzoic acid, the end has broken off the Hoffman Voltameter and we've got no cash till Sept budget when we'll have a whole new A level syllabus with new practical requirements like lab books.

Well Labour's new leader Jeremy Corbyn is very much against Academy and Free schools wanting to get them all back under LEA oversight. On the downside he's probably nigh on unelectable on his platform as is (perhaps fortunately as he seems to believe that religious and nationalist fundamentalists are amenable to dialogue).

Not sure about his ideas for a 'national education service' though - sounds like a recipe for an overly bloated bureaucratic body that will probably make delivering his vision of education more difficult....

'If I can shoot rabbits then I can shoot fascists'Miners against fascism.Hywel Francis